Tube City Almanac

June 30, 2009

Tear 'Em All Down, and Let God Sort 'Em Out

Category: Commentary/Editorial || By


Following up yesterday's Almanac, here's just one of the ads on eBay seeking a sucker to buy an abandoned house.

According to county tax records, this house at 2902 Freeland is a 1900-vintage frame structure in "D-minus" condition.

The only grade lower than "D-minus" is "condemned," or possibly "on fire."

And --- surprise! The guy who's selling it bought it from Penny Foreclosures LLC, the same company mentioned in Adam Fleming's City Paper cover story.

And --- surprise, surprise! There's an idiot actually bidding on this house. Why not? You can put it onto your eBay Mastercard!

(The same bidder just sold another house in McKees Rocks for $107.50 per month. It's another marginal structure that will probably wind up getting torn by the Borough of McKees Rocks at the taxpayers' expense.)

Sometimes I really feel like crying.

. . .

Meanwhile, in the comments to yesterday's Almanac, Alert Reader John asks a valid question:
Why can't we take the money that the mayor literally begs from the state government and tear down everything that is uninhabitable? Do it all at once, call it the Summer of Love or something, I don't care. Maybe sell some T-shirts, hand out snow-cones and funnel cakes.

The reason these houses are bought up for cheap and rented out is because they're there. Get rid of the inventory, and they won't have anything to buy.

The mayor loves to complain about how 40 percent of the property in town is rental property, but I'm sick of hearing the complaints. If you don't want renters, get rid of the rental properties.

. . .

These are all good points, and I'm not trying to make excuses, nor am I trying to brown-nose the mayor or anyone else. (Like Pete Flaherty, I consider myself "nobody's boy.")

But I should point out that the city has asked for $800,000 in demolition assistance from Allegheny County.

And while that sounds like a lot of money, it costs $10,000 to tear down a house. That's 80 houses. Eighty houses doesn't even make a dent in the problem.

. . .

The 2000 U.S. Census estimated that there were more than 1,400 vacant houses in the City of McKeesport, and 830 of those were built before 1939.

That doesn't include vacant commercial buildings, or empty apartment buildings --- like the empty three-story building at the corner of Olive Street and Jenny Lind Street, or the one a block down at Ninth and Jenny Lind.

The city has had a very aggressive program of tearing down vacant houses over the past 10 years, but I'd be willing to bet they're barely keeping up with the houses being abandoned every year.

. . .

Let's assume the city now has 1,000 abandoned houses. It would cost $10 million to tear them all down.

You have to sell one hell of a lot of T-shirts and snow-cones to pay that bill.

And we haven't even begun to tackle all of the vacant houses in Glassport, Duquesne, Clairton, Braddock, North Braddock, East Pittsburgh, Whitaker, Wilmerding ... every community in the Mon Valley has the same exact problem, not just McKeesport.

. . .

Of course, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Buffalo, Detroit, Scranton, Detroit, Erie, Detroit* ... all of the other metro areas in the "Rust Belt" are also full of abandoned houses. Who's going to pay for tearing down their houses when McKeesport gets $10 million?

The real solution has to be creating demand for property in the Mon Valley, so that private developers will be willing to buy up abandoned houses and tear them down.

Otherwise, we're spending a lot of taxpayer money and getting nothing but vacant lots in return.

. . .

By the way, the "40 percent" figure John quoted is wrong. It's too low.

In 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that 47 percent of the single-family homes in the city were rental units.

Like I said, I think I'm going to cry.


* --- Yes, I mentioned Detroit four times. Have you seen Detroit? Or Flint?






Your Comments are Welcome!

Granted, $800k doesn’t get you a lot of demolition, but I never said it had to be spread throughout the city.

Sure, everyone can find at least one “sore thumb” home in a still-decent area, and I’m sure that if an empty lot was available for a lower cost, the homeowners on either side may have an interest in buying, if only to increase yard space. Every plot that the city doesn’t own is tax paid by someone else.

Also, there are some houses that can just be left alone. Most of the buildings on Shaw, for example. Downtown commerce is non-existant there, and there are very few actual residences near where the old mansions are crumbling away. Leave them until there’s a real need to get rid of them, either because a new business wants to move into that part of town, or there’s interest in renovating the ones people may actually live in.

No, what I’m proposing is the leveling of an entire neighborhood of homes. I’m not sure where, but there has got to be an attractive plot of land with blighted homes on it, and the homes that are occupied (almost always by renters or Section 8 troglodytes) can easily be handled by aggressive enforcement of the “nuisance” ordinances, like keeping your yard clean, your car inspected, and not beating your wife/kids/pets in the street at all hours of the night.

If the City could perhaps clear an entire neighborhood, it’s a lot easier to go to the state, an urban redevelopment firm, or retailer (NOT Wal-Mart) with open arms and say “We’ve got all this land, we’ve got roads, it’s near 2 rivers, help us build something.” No business is going to move into town if you show them the one thing that’s attractive, especially if it’s surrounded by four other problems that will also need to be addressed.

The way we’re doing it now is trying to put Band-Aids on a problem that’s been 30 years in the making. The way to move forward is make BIG changes.

And for deity’s sake, PLEASE tear down the Eagles building and the Penn-McKee already. They’ve been empty forever. If they were going to be renovated, it would have been done already. Time to move on.
John - June 30, 2009



I know I risk sounding like “Our Next Mayor (God Willing)” but the 40% wasn’t my quote. That figure was straight from Mayor Brewster, when he stopped by to explain why the city had no more funding for a police foot patrol in my neighborhood. We can blame him for glossing over the real numbers.
John - June 30, 2009



I have no serious disagreements with you, John.

To some extent, what you’re talking about is aggressive wielding of eminent domain, which is what the Redevelopment Authority did Downtown in the 1960s and early ’70s in the name of clearing “blight.”

(See John Hoerr’s “And the Wolf Finally Came,” pp. 600 to 604.)

Big projects have a certain “critical mass,” along with a “wow” factor. What’s the saying? “Make no small plans, they have no power to move men’s souls?”
Webmaster - June 30, 2009



By the way, I might as well post a warning: Any candidate for office posting a political speech here will find his or her comment deleted.

I’ve had it right up to my bald spot.
Webmaster - June 30, 2009



As one of McKeesport’s last homeowners, I have to say that all this talk, is the same talk I have heard and said since I became a homeowner in McKeesport about 9 years ago, and that was after being a non rent paying tenant in my parents house, which they have owned and lived in since 1977 in McKeesport. Everyone knows the problem, and everyone thinks they know how to fix it, but nothing ever changes. That is why people leave..not becuase the city is blighted, etc. It is becuase they have been told for the last 30 years by every “McKeesport’s next mayor” that comes along that it will be taken care of. What you see in other cities like McKeesport is, well, it looks like somebody gives a damn. You mentioned Braddock, I think Braddock is going to come along faster than McKeesport, they have John Fetterman out there busting his balls to get things done. All we see here is people getting thier picture in the paper and getting government grants that are wastes of time. I think knocking down 3 houses in the city would have gone a lot further then the artsy benches along Walnut St. And to agree with John’s point, the old Hizrot house and Penn-McKee should have been demolished about 20 years ago when they first started falling down.
Myself, I like my neighbors and wish I could fence off my neighborhood from the rest of the city (though all the illegal fireworks no one ever seems to see, and these renters can afford even though 3 windows in thier house are boarded up , would still explode over my house). Unfortunately even this is not an answer as one of my beloved neighbors is getting older and thier kids live far awy, so thier house will probably end up on ebay, and my other neighbor “over the fence” seems just as disgusted by current conditions as I am and I expect us to have a race to see who can move out of the city first. You see we both moved into our homes as young couples and have since started families. We need bigger homes in safe neighborhoods and we are definately not checkmarking McKeesport on our Realtor.com search. The only way things will change is if we stop the musical chairs system in in local government where everyone has been something or run for something else 3 times. I think pretty soon they will just put up the same signs every election and white out the position so they can run for something else. Anyway, it’s late and the fireworks have stopped, so now I am going to bed. When I saw your report on the City Paper article I just thought to myself, “Preaching to the choir, man.” Keep up the good work.
Adam - July 01, 2009



OK, Adam … I’m not trying to be a wise-ass here, but what — legally — should the city be doing?

The Mon Valley lost about 50 percent of its population between 1980 and today. That means it has about twice as many buildings as it needs.

I’m all for tearing down abandoned buildings, but (1.) someone needs to pay for it, and (2.) someone needs to do the legal work to make sure they’re truly abandoned.

As for Mayor Fetterman, I like him, too, but a lot of what he’s done has been symbolic —- like bringing artist colonies into the borough.
Webmaster - July 01, 2009



FYI- The quote is, “Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood and will probably not themselves be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, for a noble and logical diagram, once recorded, will not die.” Daniel Burnham, architect and city planner. He did a lot of buildings in downtown Pittsburgh but the most famous is Pennsylvania Station.
mvg - July 01, 2009



Thank you, MVG.
Webmaster - July 01, 2009



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